Damn

I was hoping for a more Kristy-esque rant about why the Olympics suck... so I'll start mine!

Why I hate the Olympics.
By Mark Breaton

There are basically three reasons why I hate the Olympics: the fallout from the games, the ethics of the games, and the games or events themselves.

Fallout: The games dominate every form of media for the duration of the events. Thankfully for me, I spend very little time watching television and such, so it doesn't affect me much, however, I cannot help but be exposed to the over-abundance of sudden patriotism and pride. However, I also shake my head when, during the intervening three years, there is very little support and loyalty to these athletes as they often have to spend a significant amount of their own savings for their chance to represent Canada.

Ethics: Speaking of representing Canada, and the economics of Olympic athletes, I feel that the games are horribly mismanaged. Years ago, Canada rejoiced with its dominance in the 100m sprint when Donovan Bailey won the gold medal, this year, a 50 year old former gold medalist represented Canada in fencing (though she was eliminated earlier this week). These are just two examples of probably my biggest annoyance of the games - neither of these two athletes are actually from Canada. Donovan Bailey is in fact Jamaican born, and the 50 year old former gold medalist? She actually won the gold for China - her home country. Now, they have both received citizenship, and I have no problems with immigration, however, IMO, you should represent your home country. Otherwise, certain countries will consistently perform well at the games, not because of funding of the programming, or because of innate skill, or even sheer population numbers, but because of money. Why would someone train their whole life to represent Uzbekistan, where if you win a gold medal you can return to your home country a hero, when you can represent the USA, return a hero, and then get the Nike endorsement deal, do the talk show circuit, and probably end up on a reality television show for millions of dollars?

The Event: Now, here's the argument I'll likely catch the most hell for. Many of the events in the Olympics are not definitive regarding winners. If I were to compete in basketball, sprints, weightlifting, kayaking, or swimming, I could definitively say I either won or lost: I scored more points, I lifted more weight, or my time was shorter than everyone else's. These events I have no issues with. However, as the games have progressed, we have added events such as synchronized swimming, diving, synchronized diving, trampolining, ballroom dancing, and other such sports where the "scoring" is based upon a panel of judges. This is not, IMO a definitive scoring system. One has only to look at the last winter Olympics where there was a hubbub over the pairs figure skating event, and a French judge basically screwed the Canadian team out of the gold by rating the other (Russian?) team higher. IIRC, the Canadians objected, and were awarded a gold medal too. That's right.... "too". So now, we have TWO 1st place gold medalists (okay, two pairs). As an aside, as long as these "sports" are recognized as Olympic caliber, and I apologize to those that have heard this rant, I will suggest another "sport" that should be allowed - professional wrestling.

Scoring in figure skating is based on several criteria such as skills, transitions, execution, choreography, and interpretation. These skills are given essentially a grade, and the highest overall grade wins. Well, you could easily find the equivalent categories in a standard professional wrestling match, and score it much the same. So, barring the other requirements for Olympic recognition such as the need for internationally recognized competitions and what not (one of the reasons why there is no female skiing long jump where there IS a men's event), from a technical standpoint, a pro-wrestling match could be graded and scored just like figure skating / diving / gymnastics / etc etc.

Okay... asbestos suit on... flame away

Mark